What type of peer group are you looking for?
First, you need to determine what type of peer group you need. Ask yourself: what is the purpose of the comparison? On what grounds is a comparison to other schools necessary? The answers to these questions help determine the type of analysis needed to form the peer group. For instance, if you want to compare JMU against other institutions that also tend to accept applications from JMU applicants, then you simply need to find data on this one variable: cross-applicants. If you want to compare us against other institutions that rank similarly in U.S. News and World Reports, then all you need to do is to do an internet search for the rankings information and look for schools close to JMU. These types of peer groups are pre-determined based on the specific interest of the study or question being posed. They require no additional analysis.
However, sometimes these pre-determined peer groups are not appropriate for us to use. As an example, we often want to know how JMU compares against other schools concerning faculty salaries. We could use a pre-determined list of institutions, such as other Virginia publics, or R2 institutions, but this may not make sense. Private research institutions, ones in areas with higher cost of living, or highly selective institutions may pay their faculty more and do not provide a comparable environment needed to determine the quality of compensation offered at JMU. Here, more reflection is likely needed to identify institutions that have similar qualities to JMU on variables such as enrollment size, sector (public vs private), and student outcomes.
If the purpose of your peer group is to benchmark JMU against “like institutions” for the purpose of decision making, then this toolkit may provide you with the steps you need to complete such a task.